Santa Barbara Iraq War Memorial

Since we are not allowed to see flag drapped caskets, have overt memorials or even honor those who asnwered thier country's call to serve. This is sobering, and very moving.

From the Stephanie Miller Show

I coulda had a V-8, except now it's an FDA regulated drug.

"At the end and beginning of a war, that we have to watch out for ourselves. In between, it's like a country club. But you got to know how to keep your balance. Keep the balance and make the right friends because this war is defiantly winding down."
- John Malkovich, Empire of the Sun

Does it seem to you that the Bush administration, and corporate America are ramping up their attack on middle and poor America? It's been bad but now it seems that they are trying to inflict as much damage as they can in the 1 1/2 years left of this administration.

It's so bad that this administration with it's corporate friendly policies, and acting as their personal police force, is trying to reclassify vitamins, herbs, supplements, vegetable juices, even massage oils and rocks.

This move will be a end the 1994 DSHEA law that made supplements legal and OTC. Have you noticed that you now find things like vitamin E, St. John's Wort, even Cranberry capsules, on the super market shelf. This will end and it will be a big victory for Big Pharma.

It is true that the bill does not directly state that it intends to regulate or restrict access to dietary supplements. However, language within the section establishing the Regan-Udall Foundation grants the FDA new regulatory power to brand food ingredients (and thus dietary supplements) as unsafe utilizing the Critical Path Initiative drug-related risk assessment technology.
- Byron Richards

And we all know the devil is in the details.

What will be affected by this act:

• All vitamins, nutritional supplements and functional foods will be stripped of their structure & function claims, reducing them to empty labels where virtually nothing at all is allowed to be stated.
  
• Vegetable juice will be regulated as a drug. Raw juice retreats will be raided or shut down.
  
• Growing and selling common garden herbs will get you arrested as a drug dealer.
  
• Massage oils and handheld massagers will be regulated as "medical devices."
  
• Yoga props, pilates machines and weight machines will be regulated as "medical devices" and require FDA approval before being sold or used.
  
• Raw sprouts and other anti-cancer foods will be regulated as drugs.
  
• Bottled water that "treats" dehydration will be regulated as a drug.
  
• Massage therapists who use hot rocks as part of their therapy will have the ROCKS regulated as medical devices! (It's true. The FDA will actually look at a pile of rocks and declare, "Those are medical devices!")
  
• Functional foods, supplements, vitamins and homeopathic remedies will disappear from store shelves, pending FDA "review." (The only things remaining will be processed junk foods and pharmaceuticals, which is exactly what Big Business wants.)
  
• Therapeutic tea products, such as green tea, will be outlawed and confiscated.
  
• Vitamin store owners will be arrested and prosecuted for "practicing medicine without a license."
  
• Citizens owning personal inventories of "unapproved drugs" (vitamins and herbs) may have their homes raided at gunpoint and their inventories confiscated by armed law enforcement agents.
  
• The importation of herbs and functional foods from all countries may be banned.

While drug safety is important, and the governement needs to protect the citizenry from the harmful effects of pharmaceutical companies out of control; herbs, vitamins, vegetable juice, etc. should be left alone. These are time honored remedies and a personal health choice. I mean if you are going to really regulate something, shouldn't you do more to make cigarettes a behind the pharmacy counter, controlled substance?

People like Leslee Unruh can scream all they wants about "Big Pharma," but she and all her Republican friends who support this administration and who have voted to keep them in office and every Republican senator and congressman in Washington are their enablers.

The board of directors is composed of the Commissioner of the FDA, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 4 representatives from Big Pharma and Big Biotech, 3 representatives from academia (which is funded by Big Pharma), 2 more from the FDA and NIH, 2 from consumers groups, and 1 from health care providers. This means that the FDA/Big Pharma/Big Biotech voting block always has 13 votes -- to at the most 3. Who are you kidding? This front group foundation is run by the FDA in combination with the industry it is supposed to be regulating. This makes the FDA part of the drug business as a drug company
- Byron Richards

As this corporate/big business friendly, average American hostile, administration winds down expect more and more of this. Keep watch or the social and economic buggering we've been getting from this administration will only get worse.

Send a letter to your senator and congressperson (scroll down to "Health Freedom is on the Line").

More Information:
Understanding the Threat to Dietary Supplements
FDA acquiring new powers to suppress alternative health
U.S. Senate attempts damage control as House braces for onslaught
More Byron Richard's articles

When Fantasy and Reality Collide: Dolores Umbridge and Leslee Unruh

This past week Pandagonians (those that comment on Amanda Marcotte's blog, Pandagon) spent much time and considerable humor posting comments about Leslee Unruh's insane rant on Lybrel. It is a birth control pill the FDA approved recently that the Christian right hates. It simply stops a woman from having her period, and there by (according to Unruh and her ilk) de-feminizes them (us) as is a form of self hate because it would liberate us from what is, after all, a mere "inconvenience."



For me, menses and the possible use of Lybrel, is more than simply ridding myself of an "inconvenience" but freedom from enslavement. (I posted why as a comment on Pandagon The source of our collective delusions may be summed up in one sentence, if you want to read why, you'll have to go there). To hear Unruh call Mary Alice Carr a liar when she tried to talk about women like me, was really more than I could take.


Around 11:02am fellow Pandagonian, Djinna, commented on how someone on Pandagon (she thought) referred to Dolores Umbridge [Harry Potter charter, Order of the Phoenix], helped get a mental picture of Leslee Unruh . I was delighted because I believed, as still believe, it was me, as e I had made the comment weeks before that while reading the transcripts of some wingnut commenting about something or other on Pandagon, I couldn't help but read it in Dolores Umbridge's voice. I didn't know then, how many would get my reference.


Well soon the comments were rife with Leslee Unruh being referred to as [Dolores] Umbridge. I laugh whenever I think about it, because the comparision is not without good reason.

In J.K. Rowling's fifth Harry Potter book, Dolores Umbridge is described as:


[Chapter 8] "He thought she looked just like a large pale toad. She was rather squat with a broad flabby face, as little neck as Unlce Vernon, and a very wide slack mouth. Her eyes were large, round, and slightly buldging. . ."

". . . The witch spoke in a fluttery, girlish, high pitched voice that took Harry aback; he had been expecting a croak."

She is also descirbed as having a false sweetness and sincerity of concern in her voice.

While noticing the physical and vocal similarities maybe (and is) a lot of fun, it certainly isn't nice. But it is more than physical and vocal appearance for which the comparison can be made, it is the overall goal of each.

Dolores Umbridge seeks total control of the students and teachers at Hogwarts.

Lesless Unruh seeks total control over a woman's body and her reproductive health and rights.

Both of them subvert and suppress the truth to gain and maintain that control. And it is that sad truth for which the comparison is aptly made.

A dose of guilt with your "free" Marine Windbreaker

This is a deck of 12 cards my son received from the Marines last week. As you read through them, partaking of all the emotional manipulation going on in them, please think of Andrew Madison Rove (son of Karl Rove), the 5 sons of Mitt Romney, Paris Hilton, Jenna and Barbara Bush (they could serve state side), any and all Young Republicans (especially those in college and there a lot of them) who have not and are not serving.

Doesn't the priviledged, upper class think that our way of life is worth protecting, that they need to do their part, or want to make a difference? They that benefit the most from this way of life.

The cards are presented in order (there is a number on the bottom right of the back of each card. To see the larger version, click on it. The band that held the cards has the directions.

Inside Paperboard Cover

Band

Card 1

Card 2

Card 3

Card 4

Card 5

Card 6

Card 7

Card 8

Card 9

Card 10

Cards 11 and 12 do not have a number on them so it is impossible to tell which order they belong in. Attached to each card is a perforated Business Reply card asking for name, address, phone number, cell number, date of birth, email address (you can check a box for them not to send you anything via email), name of school, last grade completed, and the size for your free windbreaker (offer expiring 7/31/2007).

Interestingly enough on this post card (which anyone can read as it is being handled) is a "Privacy Act Statement." All the information provided will be used for recruiting purposes only.

Card 11

Card 12


Look for more as we go into Bush's second surge to get us to 200,000 troops in Iraq and a plan for us to be there 5 to 10 more years. It is beginning to look enough like Viet Nam yet to you? Or do we need to get to 200 dead American service persons a day? We are now at 5 a day.

Update:Cheap skate Marine corps chose to let our Marines die from IEDs rather than give them the equipment they needed

Even the Queen get's it

Following the Queen's return to the UK her carbon footprint will be calculated and offset for the first time for a state visit.

Buckingham Palace will make a donation to an environmental charity to offset the plane journeys made by the Royal couple and their entourage. - - BBC

Even the Queen get's global warming, and buying carbon offsets. Will somone explain it again to Bush, Inhofe and Craig, maybe using crayons and a felt board this time.

President Bush, Fight Like You Mean It!

That's the message I would take back to the president after his veto of war funds.

Those of us who have been paying attention, know that at no time during the Iraq war have we had the number of troops in theater needed to win the war.

Those of us who have been paying attention, know that recruitment is down and that the military revised downward the yearly goal numbers for new recruits.

We also know that not only has the military resorted to "stop lossing," extended tours and many deployments of the same soldiers (decreasing the time at home between deployments that the military says a soldier needs to be able to fight), we are also recruiting those into the military who before we would have turned away (neo-nazis, militia, KKK, etc.) and keeping those on active duty that should be released (due to issues such as mental problems caused by this war).

Those of us who have been paying attention, know that at we sent troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq without the proper equipment and armor.

Those of us who have been paying attention, know that at we are sending new troops into Iraq without their full and necessary training.

Those of us who have been paying attention, know that we as a country, have never been placed on a war footing and as a result all the ordinance and equipment being used and used up in Iraq is not being replaced. We are weaker today than we were 9-11-2001.

The President and the White House are using the talking point that if Democrats really don’t like this war and thinks we shouldn’t be fighting it then we/they should just defund the war.

Democrats are smarter than to bite. They know that those who only watch Fox News, listen to only Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. or who don’t really pay attention but lean to the right will believe that the Democrats are for leaving troops stranded and without bullets in Iraq. While those who are left of center, left leaning, progressive, liberal, etc. know that nothing is further from the truth, we know that Republicans are not above those despicable, untruthful and divisive tactics and talking points to stay in power.

So what should the answer be?

I believe the 30 second sound bite from Demcrats should be “If you believe the Iraq war is necessary then, President Bush, Fight Like You Mean It!”

But what does that mean?

• Give the troops the full rest they deserve before deploying them again.
  
• Give the new recruits the FULL training they need and deserve.
  
• End stop loss.
  
• Reinstate the draft.
  

Yes the draft.

How could I, who have never supported the war in Iraq, want the draft? Actually I don’t, but I do know 3 things.

1. Our troops are exhausted and our volunteer army doesn’t have enough recruits to replace those who need a rest.
   
   
   
2. By in large Americans have not been asked to be part of this war. As a result the war, it’s reasons and casualties happen to “someone else.” A draft will finally bring the realties home, once the majority of America has a loved one who will be put in harms way, they will pay attention.
   
   
   
3. Given number 2, the more attention paid the more chance it will bring an end to the war that much faster.
   

It’s sad, but it’s true. and the Bush administration knows it. That’s why this administration would rather abuse our service men and women and run them to pure exhaustion (and then refuse to deal with the life time physical and mental health issues that have and will happen because of this policy), then to fully fight this war. Instead of all Americans "in" this war and putting us on a war footing we've been told to “go shopping.”

It could be argued that I can be in favor of the draft because I know my 22 year old daughter, and 20 year old son will be somewhere around 4F in the call-up: My daughter due to a birth defect and my son due to an accident when he was 17 (but already an Army recruiter was ready to overlook the lifelong injury and get him into the uniform, so I'm not so sure about that). But you know what, I have two more sons (teen and pre-teen), and if this war lasts as long as Viet Nam (which I am afraid it will) they will be drafted.

The challenge issued in “President Bush, fight like you mean it!,” illustrates that Bush (Mr. Codpiece and Flight Suit) and his administration has NEVER fought this war to win.

They’ve gotten away with it because the majority of the American people aren’t really paying attention.

Americans need to, we must, and if the draft is the way to get it done, well it's what needs to be done. But more than that, if the Republicans REALLY support the troops than they must stop abusing them and reinstate the draft so that those who are fighting can rest, and those that are going to fight, have the time to be fully trained. The Bush administration and the Republicans will finally cease treating these Americans like facial tissue; something to be used (abused) and then thrown away - they will actually support the troops, by getting more men and women (maybe even finally their own children) serving.

My dream, my nightmare

Last night I had a dream. Oh, it wasn’t the type of dream Martin Luther King had. My dream wasn’t uplifting, it was anything but.

In my dream, no nightmare, the Dominionists (Christian Reconstructionists) had taken over this country. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights meant nothing any more.

Everyone in the US was Christian, either sincerely or by public adoption (thereby keeping their own lives) but lacking in a sincere conversion. There was no joy in the world, except for those who truly believed, those with questions or rejections either pasted a smile on their face and lived with the oppression, or doomed themselves by speaking out.

Homosexuality, non evangelical Christian sects, Catholics, all non-Christians (including Jews), dissent, idolatry and blasphemous behavior had been driven under ground. Those caught were executed.

In the dream I was banished once more to the home, property of my husband. Disallowed public discourse or to even to voice my own views because I was to speak only what my husband wished. I spoke for him and he was preeminent. I couldn’t even vote, women having lost the franchise.

My kids went to “public schools” but they were Christian Reconstructionist in scope and they learned only approved “science” and a revisionist history of the world. The only universities they could attend were Regents, Patrick Henry College, Liberty University, Pensacola Christian College (publishers of A-Beka school and homeschool material), Bob Jones University and any state university that the Dominion would approve as having the appropriate text and teachers of like mind.

Even the fields that they would go into had to have the hand of “Christian Reconstructionism” for approval. There was no escaping it for the Dominion had taken over every secular institution and non-complaint church and either changed it or closed it.

And in my dream a small group of us who could take it no more met in the middle of the snowy woods, speaking in a low voice we wondered when we lost “our” country. Someone said, just before we heard the snowmobiles coming toward us and the order to “RUN!” , that it was when Bush shredded the constitution and 150 Regent graduates had begun to remake the government as the Dominionists paln for control said they would, but no one listened. No one listened and no one looked to see how many more graduates of these universities were “in” government offices.

I woke up just as one snowmobile closed in on me as I ran to escape what would be my execution.

****

Now in my waking it is raining and I cannot loose the feeling of absolute oppression, in MY country no less. And I wonder why no one has really made the connection between the 150 Regent graduate DOJ employees and the Dominionists aims, plans, practices and goals.

****

Its most common form, Dominionism, represents one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity thought. Its followers, called Dominionists, are attempting to peacefully convert the laws of United States so that they match those of the Hebrew Scriptures. They intend to achieve this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order. from Relious Tolerance . org

From Mainstream Baptist, a blog by Dr. Bruce Prescott

Monday, March 19, 2007
A Reconstructionist Takeover Video

In February 1990 I received an unsolicited video in the mail. The video came from a Dr. Stephen Hotze and was entitled "Restoring America: How You Can Impact Civil Government." Filmed at a church in my neighborhood, I recognized the actors as the pastor and congregants of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church (the Jerry Falwell kind). The video was a guide on how to 1) take over a Republican Party precinct meeting, 2) elect "Christian" delegates to the GOP District meeting, and 3) put planks supporting the theocratic agenda of Christian Reconstructionism into the party platform. . . .

. . . Along with his video tape, Hotze sent a written agenda and instructions for how to conduct a precinct meeting. He also suggested resolutions for the party's platform. Today, nearly all the planks that Hotze suggested can be found in the current platform of the Texas Republican Party.

Meanwhile, most of the country club Republicans who provide the funds for this theocratic juggernaut still seem to be sipping their cocktails in ignorant bliss.

Dominionists are patient revolutionaries. They work through the system to gain control. Then they work from within the system to change the system. The changes they are making are incremental. They have little respect for democracy and none for pluralism. They mean business and they already hold many of the mechanisms of power around the country.

It is long past time for Americans who love democracy to acknowledge what is at stake and start facing the challenge that these patient theocratic revolutionaries represent. . .

Right Now - I'm Getting Ready for the Weekend and Putting Bumper Stickers on My Car

With thanks to Randi Rhodes for playing this as a bump a few minutes ago.

A little observation about Imus and Conservatives

I think it is really interesting how conservatives get all exercised by a little nipple shown by a possible "wardrobe malfunction" (which you really had to Tivo it and run it back and forth many times to see) but have no problem with hate speech.

What you never knew Mr. Vonnegut

This morning when I found out Kurt Vonnegut had died I was not only deeply saddened, but I knew how this news would effect one of his biggest fans, my 20 year old son.

I confess I enjoyed listening to Vonnegut's interviews but I never read his books. In fact up until 2 years ago I don't think we had any book of his but "Slaughter House Five." That was until a summer reading course my son took.

My eldest son hadn't been doing well in school. A kid with enormous potential, who preferred to watch the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and anything to do with building, fixing and restoring cars, he just couldn't seem to put it together for school. Due to his dyslexia he was a very slow reader but refused to have an IEP done because he didn't want to be labeled a "Sped."

He was a wiz in auto shop, loved history, but got bad grades because he'd "forget" to hand in his homework. Ditto for psychology. As the years went on he went from wanting to go to college and become a history teacher, to wanting to go to trade school and become a mechanic (we were fine with this) to not having a clue or seemingly even caring how he ended up.

That was until the summer before his senior year and a reading class he took that was sponsered by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. All of a sudden he was reading faster, comprehending and enjoying what he was reading. Among the samples that they read in class and for class was Vonnegut. He was hooked. He read more and more, and most of the books he read were Vonnegut.

He returned for his last year in high school and his preformance in his classes stunned everyone. Here was the student everyone knew was in there, but no one seemed to have the ability to draw out. Here was someone passionate about learning, forming and sharing well thought out ideas. Teachers who had had him before in their class were both over joyed at this new engaged person entering their classroom, and lamenting that he hadn't been this way for his entire high school career.

He's now in community college working to cancel his bad high school record so that he can go on to a four year university. His plans/his dreams, include not one but two PhDs in History and Sociology. His step-Dad, his grandparents and I could only be happier if he accomplishes all his dreams, but he is off to a good start.

And all it took was one summer reading class and an author named Kurt Vonnegut.

For that Mr. Vonnegut, I thank you.


Side note: My son had hoped to one day met Kurt Vonnegut, he was and is deeplyu saddened by this news. In one of his recent college papers, that he finished this week, he was quoting Slaughter House Five. His dog eared, slightly rumpled copy is sitting here at my computer.

Update: I just found out that it is my middle son (14 years old) who is reading Slaughter House Five.

Do you really want to fly when there's only one person in the tower?

Planes wait while controller takes potty break
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two airliners had to circle for 18 minutes and a plane ferrying human lungs for transplant was briefly delayed Friday while an airport's lone air traffic controller took a bathroom break, the controller's union said.

The union on Tuesday cited the Friday incident at the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport as evidence that air traffic control facilities are understaffed.

"There should never be one person in the tower, because it's not safe," said Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "It's just added proof that the system is stretched to its limits, and these are the type of things that are happening."

Federal Aviation Administration officials responded that staffing is sufficient, that the bathroom break was handled in accordance with policy, and that travelers were not endangered or unduly inconvenienced.

While drawing vastly different conclusions about the significance of the event, the FAA and the union gave details that generally matched.

. . .

"It's the FAA's position that the staffing that was present at Manchester was sufficient to safely handle arrivals and departures at that time of the evening," Peters said. "He was only gone for 12 minutes, so while there may have been a slight delay in the aircraft landing, certainly the controller did what he had to do."

. . .

The FAA and the controllers' union have skirmished repeatedly in recent months about staffing levels at airports.

The union says controllers are often forced to work overtime, contributing to fatigue, which results in safety lapses. But the FAA says most overtime is voluntary and said instances of involuntary overtime are rare.
CNN

First off I know an air traffic controller who just retired, he wanted to "get out" before it got any worse. His wife says that they are stressed to their limit, understaffed and suffer from tremedous fatique (they also get to fly down to Florida every year for a hell of a family vacation, but that's neither here nor there).

I have been to the Manchester airport. In fact my two oldest children flew out of there for what would be their last visit with their father before he died. While it is not as busy as Logan, it certainly isn't as slow as the Wichita airport.

Additionally, having Logan's air controllers double up and take on Manchester's flights for 18 minutes is not comforting at all. These people, we've entrusted with our safety, don't need any more flights dropped in their lap. Logan is a very busy airport.

So what happens when more flights are allowed onto the schedule and the skys become more crowded? Bush administration wants to do that, at the expense of our safety. We've already seen more mining disasters in the past 6 years than we had for the 12 -15 years before that. Due in large part to weaken unions, embolden companies, lax safety and absent enforcement (have you heard that OSHA is pretty much a joke now).

And really with the policticizing of all government agencies, including the CDC, do you really believe anything that comes from the FAA?

Republicans = Dark Ages

We can put a man on the moon but we can't have a universal remote, with recharagable battery, AND location pager

Honestly! This would seem like the easiest thing in the world, and much needed too! I am so tired of hearing my sons demand to know where the remote is or where new batteries are.

We had television remotes before we had cordless phones. Someone saw the wisdom of putting a locator pager for cordless phones but how many times have you lost the television remote. You need to have a locating pager especially if you have kids.

But NOOOOOOOOOO - television remote makers must think it's funny to have to tear up the whole house looking for the darned remote so that you can use the DVR, watch pay perview, program parental controls, etc.

Representative Republic or a Dominion - (Blog Against Theocracy)

Back in the 1960’s my mother took an interesting stand, she said that she did not want prayer in the public school. She reasoned that the person leading the prayer might not have the same interpretation of the church she was raising her daughters in. The maverick she was/is (she’s listed in the 1963 volume of “Who’s Who of American Women”) did not want her daughters exposed to any doctrine that made them servants to men.

She was not Madalyn Murray O'Hair, heck she is a United Methodist, and this is probably the only instance that the two would ever agree. But in that instance my sister and I learned about respecting differences in religious belief. “What prayer and whose prayer?” she would ask, some what rhetorically, about prayer in schools.

While some of my cousins learned that women should not lead, the church I was raised in had female ministers. While some of my cousins learned that evolution was a lie, science was suspect and that the Bible was paramount, we learn not to take the Bible literally and that the way to understand God’s creation was through science.

I learned a very “social gospel.” take care of your brother, take care of the planet, practice random acts of kindness, never bear false witness, always do the right thing, always be a stand up person, write your own personal code, have morals, never wish harm on anyone, and to never carry your faith on your sleeve. I have always sought to do these things, be this person.

It wasn’t until I left Christianity itself (after trying on my mother’s church, my father’s church, Assemblies of God, Episcopalians etc.) that I realized that these aren’t just the directives of a Christian but those of humanity as well. Jesus was just one of many who knew these truths and not only taught them, but lived them as well. But these truths are not what I am seeing of Christianity today and it pains me to admit that I now have a knee jerk, gut level revulsion whenever I hear about the Christian faith.

The Jerry Falwell’s, Pat Robertson’s, James Dobson’s and Franklin Graham’s, etc. are not the Christianity I grew up in and respect. The effects of their onerous diatribes and open contempt for immigrants, non-Christians (and as we learned this month James Dobson doesn’t consider the church I was raise in to be Christian), gays, evolution, science, women, respect for others and their beliefs, the principals that have made this nation a great nation, etc., have created a negative association within many people, including me. I don’t even see the values I grew up with, all I see is an ugly public face that divides rather than unites, seeks war over being the peacemakers, seeks wealth over service, etc. This public Christianity seeks to undermine and eviscerate that which made this nation great, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

A few years ago I sat with my son in a synagogue while he watched his friend's Bat-mitzvah. Many of their class was there; they were Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Drus and even atheists, all invited and all witnessing and sharing their friends event. All I could think was what a wonderful country, that what divides others could unite, coexist and be celebrated here.

That is the face I want my children to see of their country. That is what I want them to know of the greatness we are capable of. But that's not what the Dobsons, Falwells, et. al. want. Sadly the shining example displayed in that synagoge is not what my children see from powerful Christians. These powerful Christians who have the microphone, the air time, who have been made all the more powerful by faith based initiatives that blur the line between separation of church and state, display a theology diametrically opposed to their grandmother's. This theology, has been made powerful by receiving the lions share of faith based initiative moneys which has so embolden them that you can ne’er escape their message.

But instead of being a message of hope, reconciliation, respect, inclusion, unity and peace, or light, it is one that uses anything, including our government to further it’s own ends. And the question that needs to be asked is; “Will our Representative Republic survive, or will it become a Dominion."

See also:
Religious Tolerance - Dominionism
Theocracy Watch - Dominionism and Dominion Theology
Wikipeadia - Christian Right , Dominionism

READ MORE in the Blogswarm - Blog Against Theocracy

Blog Against Theocracy

I'll be participating and I'm hoping Dr. Dentene will send me a post - since he and I do talk about this on various occassions. In fact it any of my friends who read this blog, but do not have one of their own wants to add a post, please email it to me (along with the alias you want used, if you want to use one) and I'll post it.

More information can be found here.

First Freedom First

Some more subtext of Bush's speech today

"I believe that the American people want to eat cake."

FLASH! President Bush just confirmed he can't do math

In President Bush's press conference today he spoke of carbon/environmental offsets and that China will put so much greenhouse gas into the air as to nullify gains we do in limiting our own output of greenhouse gases.

But wait a minute if we put 1 pound of greenhouse gases into the air and China puts 1 pound of greenhouse gases into the air that's 2 pounds. 1+1=2

But if we put no greenhouse gas into the air and China still puts 1 pound into the air that is only 1 pound of gas into the air. 0+1=1

So, uh, wait, that's only 1 pound greenhouse of gas if we limit of do not produce greenhouse gas vs. 2 pounds of greenhouse gases if we do nothing. And yet some how China's production of greenhouse gases will nullify all our gains. So in Bush's world 1 = 2

So if we 30 pounds in the air last year and only put 15 pound of greenhouse gases in the air, and China still puts 30 pounds into the air . . . that's still a loss of 15 pounds into the air, that's not nullifying. 30+30=60 vs 15+30=45

Maybe Dubbya needs to go back to school . . . we have that nifty "No Child Left Behind Now."

Conservatives hate the FREE market of ideas

Conservatives love to say that they are in the market place of ideas. But how can it be a market or a free market, if there is no choice? They say progressive radio is doesn't sell, but even streaming on the web (DC station because we lost our station in Boston) I've noticed a whole bunch of commercials; a whole range of local commercials we never heard in Boston . "Beecause we know progressives in Boston and our "metro area," don't eat, don't go grocery or car shopping, don't go to shows( like monster truck rallies), don't shop for prom wear or any clothes for that matter, don't take our family to fun places. . . etc.

In reality conservatives don't like a real open/free market, because if they did they would be meeting the talk radio needs of half the nation. They don't want to have a real competition - and they need to be challenged every time they spout the marketplace of ideas and that progressive radio doesn't sell. They are saying, by default, that they can only win in that marketplace when the cards are all stacked in their favor. (NPR isn't a commerical radio network and cannot be used to compare commerical to commerical radio)

I'm fired up, I am tired of watching progressive radio stations fall. If it is truly an ownership issue and radio stations are expensive to buy we need to have progressives donating to the cause of buying station and progressives with deep pockets helping to buy stations.

Progressive talk was a large part of the reason for the 2006 Democratic talk over of the house and senate. And conservative power brokers know it. The loss of more and more progressive stations also confirms this - without progressive talk we may loose the gains we have gotten and 2008.

In Boston we can't hear Kennedy's wonderful speeches on the Senate floor, Ohio can't hear Sherrod Brown. If the average joe can't hear our message, if the Republican's get to define who and what we are on their unchallenged talk radio stations, how do we truly compete? How do we get our message out? How do we keep our gains and get more?

This liberal media bias is a specious argument. Back in the day when it was only newspapers many large communities had two newspapers, one newspaper was known to be conservative and one was liberal. Everyone accepted that. If you wanted both sides, you read both newspapers. Now many places have lost one of their newspapers, once liberal newspapers like the LA Times are owned and controlled by conservatives and their bias is there.

We don't have radio balance. Some how we've allowed the conservatives to make a liberal bias in the media a bad thing instead of what it was when we had choice in media (two newspapers, etc.) a normal accepted thing BECAUSE both the conservative and liberal bias were represented in the choice of newspaper/media.

And if progressive radio can't sell, why are three (3) progressive talkers (Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, and Randi Rhodes) listed in the top 15 in Talkers magazine. That's even more impressive when you realize that they are on less radio stations than the other 12 are.

Examples of what was two newspaper ideology representation:
Denver Post (used to be considered Liberal) and the Rocky Mountain News (conservative)
Boston Globe (liberal) and the Boston Herald (conservative)
NY Times (liberal) and the NY Post (conservative)
etc.

(Donate to Non-Stop Radio where ever you are to keep us on in every city in the nation)

Bad, Bad, Evil George Soros, it's all YOUR Fault, again

I just visited Paul Shanklin's site. He's a neo-conservative political satrist. Rush Limbaugh (who regularly plays his stuff) calls Shanklin the "man of many voices." Okay so we have the awesome Jim Ward, among others, as a voice diety.

I was looking for something they had done on Hillary 6 to 10 years ago. While there looking for this bit that was done on Rush about Hillary (it's not there or under a title I don't remember, EIB may have done the parody themselves) I happened to listen to a clip from Shanklin's latest "American Spastic", entitled Big Oil. And I guess I shouldn't have been shocked but despite what we KNOW about Dick Cheney having secret meetings with big oil and allowing them to write enviromental and oil policy, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, George Soros, Democrats, etc. are to blame for gas being as high priced as it is.

And the poor whittle oil companies are only earning $0.09 a gallon.

Yeah right.

No wonder dittoheader blame the Iraqi war failures on "Democrats," and their supposed "lack of support and not letting the generals run the war the way they want (ie bomb everything, always) and not where the blame lies; Rumsfled's policies, lack of troops, lack of armor, lack of knowledge of the enemy (Sun Tzu is shaking his head right now), etc. etc. etc.

Would you be for a federal tax increase?

Would you be for a federal tax increase if it was for real and verifiable increased boarder patrol, increased board security, enough staffing so that all cargo containers coming into the United States can be physically searched and inspected, upgarded air traffic control equipment and fully 24/7 staffed control towers?

Or is this kind of tax increease, for your safety, your children's safety and the safety of the nation still too much for you to pay?

Is public safety and security a function of the local, state and federal government or not?